Framing / Inhabiting Crossing Spaces Exploring Collateral Spatialities Around Pedestrian Bridges In The Periurban Fluvial Landscapes Of The Lura River Park

Abstract

This research refers to the PNRR PhD Programme (PNRR Call 351 – Local Strategies: Design for the Regeneration of Fluvial Areas – Cycle XXXVIII, AUID Course), arose from the agreement between Politecnico di Milano and the Lura Park Consortium. The Consortium/Park acts both as research partner and geographical boundary of the case study, being a fluvial park.

A key feature of the scholarship is the active involvement of the public body as intermediary, which grounds the research in the specific context of the Lura sub-basin.

Thanks to an internship within the public office, the research surpasses theoretical investigation by engaging directly with the dynamics and implications of transformation processes on site—an essential aspect of design-oriented research.

The study explores how crossings can activate new identity-forming spaces within the fluvial park, in close relation to the watercourse, configuring collateral spatial networks capable of fostering new relations between urban fabric, river landscapes and light infrastructures.

The premise gains strength within the periurban North Lombard territory, made of small to mid-sized settlements and north–south infrastructure and hydrographic corridors. Within this context, Lura Park is an interstitial figure, mainly made up of agricultural and wooded areas bordering urban margins.

Here, the pedestrian bridge emerges as a nodal device to reinterpret the park landscape transversally and multiscalarly—from architectural scale to ecological and soft-mobility systems—aiming to strengthen local connections and to reframe human–park and human–river relationships.